


Little Red Stormcloud

by quiescentcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, everyone's lack of self-worth, starts out gen but destiel endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiescentcas/pseuds/quiescentcas
Summary: Supernatural Prompt ChallengeJanuary: EmotionsPrompt: Anger





	

It starts off as a light, red mist hovering above Dean’s head. In the following days it swirls and thickens into more of a fog that surrounds him like a shroud, opaque and clingy. Sometimes it overflows from its cloud-like form and trails after Dean like he’s a burning pyre walking. At first it’s clean and fresh, despite not looking so, but over the days the fog slowly goes stale. It begins to fill all enclosed spaces, and soon the bunker looks like an old gentlemen’s club where the cigar smoke hovers below the ceiling, trapped with nothing to accomplish but expansion and suffocation.

He begins to notice it condense above Sam’s head too, casting crimson shadows on his brow. Despite it being smoke and air, the tension these ever persistent tails bring the brothers is palpable. They snap at each other more, driven by the insatiable hunger of the fog that seeps into their head through their ears and is inhaled into their bodies with every breath. It twists inside them, churning up old memories and picking out the thoughts and feelings that makes each one’s blood boil.

It’s barely at the beginning of an argument between the brothers that Cas finally returns to the bunker. He hasn’t been in since the mist first appeared over Dean, and a halo of clean air encircles his whole body. Yet as he slowly descends the stairs, the red fog begins to infiltrate his bubble, sticking to him like static. He takes one look at the little red stormclouds brewing above the Winchesters’ heads and their contorted faces, flushed with the blood and the heat rising within them like magma, before throwing down a file and commanding that they take the case, if to do nothing but get out of the bunker.

Some grumbling ensues, but the lightning threatens to crash around Cas’ head, and both boys decide they’d rather take on the case. All three pile into the Impala, a final sanctuary free from their scarlet haze. But it never leaves the boys, not even Cas who was in the bunker all but a minute. 

The drive is a short one, an hour max, but when they exit the Impala and turn and look, it appears as though the windows have been tinted rose. Dean growls and hopes it doesn’t stain his leather seats. A gentle breeze picks up, and for a moment the clouds that lay over their heads are blown away, dispersing into the atmosphere. However, the second they settle into their dim, cramped motel room, it’s back, following them like an ill omen.

The case too is short. Much to their surprise, some fool has unleashed a chimera on an unsuspecting town, and all the cops seem to be capable of is calling the nearest zoo to ask whether they’re missing a lion and if it had a funny growth on its neck. A quick bit of research as they stew in their motel room reveals that the beast can be killed with lead. But before they can track down the chimera, it kills again. Twice. 

By the time they get back to the bunker after defeating the beast, the cloud filling the Impala is so red and dense that it looks like Crowley smoked out inside. It was nobody’s fault, not really, but to the boys, if there’s no such thing as fate then there can be no such thing as death.

They all manage to keep up a heavy, sulking silence through the ride home, but under the crushing weight of the air they find back in the bunker, Dean cracks.

“He shouldn’t’ve died.”

“Yeah, I get-”

“No you don’t. He shouldn’t’ve died, and he wouldn’t’ve if you hadn’t cut in at the last moment.”

Sam pulls a face. “You would’ve died if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“I had it under control.”

“No, you didn’t, Dean. That beast was one swipe away from turning your guts into jello.” 

Dean grunts. He knows Sam is right. “But then you would’ve been free to kill the thing instead of letting it get to the deputy.”

“So you wanted to get eaten first?” Sam’s voice is rising. Another ruby red stormcloud, much like the one before, is condensing above his head. “What, did you think you were being noble?”

“No, I thought I was giving you and the man a chance to kill creature and save Cas.”

“It wouldn’t’ve been worth your life.”

Dean’s yelling too now, wearing a hurricane as a crown. “And you get to decide that? You get to make that call? A man died because of your decision.”

“I get it, it sucks, but-”

“We’re supposed to save people, Sam.”

“Yeah, I saved you.”

“Well you should’ve let me die!” he roars. Cherry red oozes from his lips in a state of matter closer to that of blood than that of mist.

“Dean…”

Dean whirls around. “What, Cas?” he snaps. 

“I was fine. I wasn’t going to die. I didn’t need saving.”

“You were out cold!”

“I came back though. I know you saw me when the chimera was over you.”

“I didn’t have time to register that!” Dean dismisses. “What happened to you back there anyway? I mean, where are your powers, man? I didn’t think angels could get knocked out, so what’s the deal? Are you an angel or not?” 

Cas stills, and Dean flinches when he sees a red drop so dark it’s almost black fall from Cas’ fingertips. It  _ poofs _ as it reaches the floor, dispersing like a drop of dye in a glass of water. Dean changes tact.  

“Cas, you might be one of us, but that doesn’t mean you have to go making the same mistakes Sam and I do.”

“I wouldn’t have considered saving you a mistake. I never have.”

“Really? You sure about that? You sure it wasn’t just programmed into you the first time, and now you can’t stop, regardless of what you want? Wouldn’t be the first time, Cas.”

Cas’ eyes widen. “I broke my programming to save you. Both Sam and I would do anything for you, the only reason being that we care about you.”

“And yet you let me down! And you leave me,” Dean takes a shuddering breath, “to clean up your messes.”

“As if you’d let us in anyway.” There was something churning in Cas, and perhaps if Dean squinted he would see shadows of wings, emblazoned into the red. “You push me away, Dean; you kick me out of the bunker. You tell me I’m family, call me your brother, but has that ever occurred to you that I don’t feel the same way?”

“Cas?” asks Dean, with a tremor so soft that after all his yelling surprises him.

Sam cuts in, his voice desperate. “Dean, you need to leave.”

“What?”

“This needs to end now. Take a walk. Take a drive, anything. Just… we’ll finish this conversation later.”

Despite the fog clouding his brain and blurring his thoughts, Dean retains enough sense and will power to know that Sam’s right; he needs to go. Now. He’ll deal with this later, when he can think straight, and hopefully when the adrenaline stops pumping through his body like fire. For now, he tells himself as he grabs his car keys, he just needs to get out of the bunker. 

He steps outside and notices that, despite what he’d thought, for the first time since this whole thing started, he doesn’t feel like he’s burning from the inside out. But it’s not over yet.

Dean can’t even stop himself from slamming the door of the Impala. The thick, red fog billows and swirls as he does so, and it’s obvious that even if he wanted to drive away, he wouldn’t be able to see out of his windshield. He rolls down all the windows in the car, having to climb over the front seat to reach the back cranks. There’s something quite pleasant about the tainted air being replaced with the fresh, and it bathes Dean in a coolness. He had noticed, on his way out to the Impala, that while the mist still followed him, there was no longer a cloud hanging over his head. Its absence was encouraging. 

Tired of waiting, Dean starts up the engine and pulls out onto the road. The opacity of the fog is low enough that he’ll  _ probably _ not crash. He speeds up, turning up his music so that it doesn’t get drowned out by the rumble of the engine. Wind whips through the car, sweeping through Dean’s hair and ripping the red mist out of the Impala’s cabin. 

The car clears. Neither the seats nor the windshield were stained permanently, much to Dean’s relief. The sky opens up, there’s nothing but an empty road ahead of him, and  _ Freebird _ rings through the speakers. 

He drives further than he means to, and by the time he realizes he needs to get back to the bunker, the sun is already falling from the sky. He’s got some issues to resolve, and he thinks he knows of something in the bunker that can help.

For the first time in probably forever, Dean leaves the door to the bunker open. There’s still light outside, but the air is getting cooler by the second. It floods into the bunker like a great wave, displacing the lingering red fog and forcing it out. Dean saunters down the stairs, the breeze following close behind. It’s fresh, unlike the air he wades into. He finds Sam, but not Cas, in the main room. Sam is reading, or trying to anyway, and Dean notices that despite the bunker’s fogginess, none clouds around Sam’s head.

“Hey,” calls out Dean. Sam looks up.

“Dean, where’ve you been?”

“Out. Here come help me with something.”

Sam frowns. “With what?”

“You remember those giant fans we saw in some back room?”

“I’m pretty sure they were attached to something…”

“Can we unattach them?”

Sam sighs. “I guess.”

Dean claps his hands. “Alright, let’s do it!” He feels a momentary surge of adrenaline, but it fades as he looks around the room. “Uh, where’s Cas?”

“Dunno. He’s here somewhere though.”

“Go get started on those fans. I’ll find him.’

Sam nods and gets up, if a bit reluctantly. He heads downstairs. Dean, on the other hand, makes his way over to the kitchen.

“Cas?” he says gently to the hunched form sitting at the table. Cas pulls his head from his hands and tilts it far enough around to Dean’s feet in the doorway. It’s then that Dean notices, not the absence of the red cloud in the kitchen, but the presence of emptiness, as if the atmosphere simply doesn’t exist in this space. But that’s foolish; Dean can still breath.  

“Will you help me?” Dean asks.

Cas’ voice is rough but barely a whisper. “Of course.”

He rises slowly from his chair, but Dean waits for him. Their first stop is the bunker control room, where they make sure that all the vents are moving the air towards the main room and up to the open door. After they sort this out, they go looking for Sam. He’s managed to detach both the fans, but he’s having some trouble moving either of them very far. 

Cas, using his angel powers, is able to pick one up and carry it away, but it takes both Sam and Dean to move the second anywhere. They haul them out to the main room where they set them up and get them powered up. 

The whirring sound begins to increase steadily until no one can be heard without shouting. The force of air the fans push out is strong enough to shift even the chairs, and while there are no books or loose pages lying around, one of the lamps is thrown off of its table. The last of the lingering red fog is ejected from the bunker, and clarity is restored.

But not everything has been fixed. Not yet anyway. Dean takes a deep breath, preparing himself to take whatever comes next, and turns to first face Sam.

“Sammy, I-”

“I know.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “The li-  _ This _ life is mine, but I can’t do it without you.”

Dean nods. “I know.” He reaches up and pulls his brother down into a firm hug. He does know; it was nothing they hadn’t said to each other before. But when he lets go, they are both smiling. He claps Sam on the shoulder and turns back to face Cas. But Cas isn’t there. 

This time, he doesn’t find Cas in the kitchen. Dean searches the bunker, but it’s not until he heads back to his bedroom that he finds Cas, sitting at the foot of his bed. 

“Cas?” he asks quietly. Cas stands up, but with only a glance at Dean, he tries to leave.

“Cas, please, I’m sorry,” Dean begs, stepping in front of him, holding his hands out. Cas looks up at him sorrowfully. “About what I said to you. I didn’t know that you didn’t feel-” His voice catches in his throat, and he looks imploringly at Cas. “I don’t believe that you hate me, but if you want to walk out that door and have nothing to do with Sam or I, I won’t stop you.” He lowers his hands.

Cas doesn’t move, but his expression becomes more pained. “Dean, no, that’s not what I meant. Calling me family is the highest honor I could wish from you, and what I feel for you is just as strong, but different.” He tears his eyes away from Dean’s, ashamed. “I’m sorry. You try to include me but-”

“No, you were right. I push you away. I’m just…”

“Afraid?” Cas supplies. Dean turns his head away, looking at the ground, but he gives a quick nod. Gritting his teeth and keeping his promise to take whatever comes next, he turns back to Cas.

“I care about you, Cas. So much it scares me sometimes, like I don’t know what I’m feeling. I want you to stay with me forever, but I know I can’t ask that of you. I can’t expect you to always be there for me, because you’re too… you’re too human. You have you’re own thoughts, your own feelings. You have things to do that don’t involve me, and I know that you’ll have to leave eventually. I guess I just want to make it easier. For both of us. And I can’t-” Dean chokes and looks away, pressing his palms against his eyes. He takes a deep breath, and his hands drop down to his sides. “Cas, I love you.”

Every atom in his body is frozen, waiting for a reply. But none comes.

“Cas, say something. Do you love me?”

Softly, Cas replies, “With all my heart and soul.”

A smile briefly flickers on Dean’s face which he tries to keep, but he can’t help hesitating, unsure. 

Cas answers, “Of which I had, when I first set foot on Earth, none, but my body fills more and more every day that I’m with you, until I feel as though it can’t hold me any longer.”

Stillness is held for only a moment before Dean crashes into Cas, unsure of nothing but the two of them right there, right now. He presses his lips to Cas’, warm and willing, finally understanding.

He breaks away, after a while, but only to pull Cas closer into his arms. 

Cas’s breath tickles his neck. “I won’t leave you. Not now, not after you’re gone.”

“I know.” And this time, he truly does know.


End file.
